Rambles with Leo: A Howth Childhood

I remember the view from the Summit: the Mountains of Mourne to the north, the tips of the Snowdonia range of mountains in Wales to the east, and to the south, the usual foreshortened view of the coastline starting with Wicklow Head, then Bray Head and Dalkey Island, and the silhouettes of the Little Sugarloaf, the Big Sugarloaf, the curves of the Three Rock Mountain, sliding westward into Kilmashogue and finally the smaller hill topped by the ruins of the Hellfire Club. To the west beyond the hazy cityscape stretch the level plains of County Kildare.

This was Howth Peninsula, a promontory enclosing the north side of Dublin Bay, the point of the land topped by a handsome lighthouse whose raucous foghorn and swinging searchlight punctuated my childhood. Looking north, you see the Dolmen, mythically flung by Finn McCool from the Bog of Allen. Below is the demesne of Howth Castle, with its parkland and famous rhododendrons; the snug haven of Howth harbor dotted with sailboats and a fishing trawler just turning in at its mouth; a mile offshore is the jagged profile of Ireland's Eye, an uninhabited island with the ruins of an ancient monastery to the east and a Martello Tower to the west. Further out, opposite Malahide, is the smooth outline of Lambay Island, privately owned.

Howth Peninsula was the semi-wild, unspoiled setting of my early childhood before we moved to County Wicklow in 1953, when I was twelve. As a young boy, I wandered over what Alexander Pope calls an "isthmus of a middle state," with its interlacing pathways through the mauve and white heather, over the scenic golf course where I used to lie in wait behind a gorse bush and run off with balls that overshot the green, through Howth Castle demesne to buy vegetables, exploring the miles of exposed cliff paths that wiggled around most of the peninsula. At snug lookout points along the path, I could see the reassuring little launch chugging over to Ireland's Eye, a favorite place for family picnics; I could see the dredgers and tugboats breasting the waves of Dublin Bay, and across the bay, the mail boat from Holyhead slowing down as it prepared to swing into the entrance of Dun Laoghaire harbor. And I watched the Dragons and Mermaids and all types of sailing craft leaving a momentary tracery of disturbed water in their wake. A walk of a mile or two brought one past the tall rocks called The Needles, and past places variously named Hippy Hole, Doldrum Bay, Lion's Head, Lough Leven, Gaskin's Leap, Fox Hole, Piper's Gut, Highroom Bed, and, closer to Howth village, the Nose of Howth.

I befriended Leo McGlew, the tall postman, who did his rounds on foot. In those days, the post was delivered to each front door, no matter how long the drive was or how remote the house. I used to follow Leo on his beat, getting glimpses of other people's lives, as at dusk we walked up a twisty drive between rhododendrons or into immaculate properties with gardeners busy on lawns and in shrubberies. My parents lived on the Dublin Bay side of the Hill of Howth, known as the Baily. Some of the houses nearer the sea had spectacular gardens, one in particular spilling halfway down the steep cliff. The names of the properties were always carved or announced on the gateways: Drumleck; The Needles; Ceanchor House; Edros; Roxboro; Earlscliffe (where Provost Mahaffy of Trinity lived at the time he was tutor to Oscar Wilde). Sometimes the housekeeper would answer the door, anticipating Leo's arrival at about the same time each day, and several minutes of local gossip were exchanged. Our housekeeper, Nan, was friendly with some of these people, and when I returned home I had to relay all the details ("What did Pat out of Masser's have to say?"),which in turn Nan would bring up to my father's bedroom, as he was most of the time bedridden with TB.

Think of a boy, retreating into the shadows to allow Leo to...